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Posts Tagged ‘Richard Gehr’

Monday, May 17, 2010

Here I am in Switzerland lecturing about Art in Time. Are you tired of hearing about Art in Time yet? I’m flogging it hard. Anyhow, listen below to hear me flail about as a I try to explain things to foreigners! Allow the intro music to vibe with you, man.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Richard Gehr casts his eyes to the gutter this week in the Village Voice and finds (besides Tim’s own Gorey find) Monster Men Bureiko Lullaby. He notes that “By depicting human behavior at its worst, Nemoto recalibrates the limits of what we can bear to consider on a page of comics.” Damn straight. I have to admit, aside from my own publisher-like needs, as a critic I feel like Monster Men was criminally overlooked in 2008. With the release of this book and Hanakuma’s Tokyo Zombie we’ve gotten our first North American look at two of the seminal alternative Japanese graphics novels of the last 20 years. There have been anthologies, but never full length works. It’s a funny thing — but perhaps not unexpected — as though Jimbo and Black Hole were released in another language and more or less ignored. What do these two books say about the form? And lurking in the background is that both emerge from King Terry‘s formulation of Heta-Uma as a valid way to make comics — that this bad/good style is arguably a dominant one in the Japanese underground is worthy of notice. Terry, in fact, has packaged both artists works, and designed the North American Nemoto book as well. As far as I can tell, he’s exerted an influence similar to that of Art Spiegelman (editor/packager/mentor) on the Raw generation. I hope there’s room for more material, but I wonder if the sales will make it feasible. They’re not easy reads (well, Hanakuma is easier than Nemoto, but still…) Remember, there’s a trove of material corresponding to our own 30-odd year history of alternative comics, and a tiny, tiny fraction of it has been shown here. I imagine Top Shelf’s Ax anthology will help remedy that, and of course the mighty D&Q continues to shine light on unseen parts of Manga history. Anyhow, all of this is to say that I’d selfishly love to see an article about all of this by a writer far better informed than I am. So, get on it already!

Thursday, August 28, 2008

The esteemed Richard Gehr has some nice words about two Comics Comics faves: Ogden Whitney and (shameless plug here) Rory Hayes on the Village Voice site. This is apparently going to be a weekly column, which is good news for us. A few little updates: PictureBox is going to publish a collection of Ogden Whitney’s romance and sci-fi comics in late 2009 or early 2010. Co-edited by Frank Santoro, Bill Boichel and little ol’ me. We are scouring the earth for any and all Whitney material. We aim to solve a few mysteries with this one and should get down to work on it as soon as Mr. Santoro stops blogging for a minute and finishes Cold Heat! Ha! Just kidding. Sort of. No, but seriously, Frank is very close to finishing and we will send the book to the printer in December in order to have the books in stores everywhere in April.

ALSO: I have heard a rumor from an original art dealer that Ogden Whitney had a son. This is news to me, as none of the info I’ve turned up indicates he had any children. If you have any info about this, please email me at dan [at] pictureboxinc.com.